Mark Zuckerberg finished his second day of marathon grilling over user data and Facebook bias — here's what you need to know

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing regarding the company’s use and protection of user data on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 11, 2018.

source

REUTERS/Leah Millis

Mark Zuckerberg faced a tough day of questioning on his
second day of US Congressional questioning on
Wednesday.

The Facebook CEO was grilled over what data Facebook
collects, and his answers were often evasive and
unsatisfying.

Republican lawmakers were largely focused on
allegations of anti-conservative bias at the social
network.

It comes after a Senate hearing on Tuesday, in which
Zuckerberg avoided any real upsets.

Mark Zuckerberg's second day of congressional testimony didn't go
quite as smoothly as his first.

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When the Facebook CEO appeared before a US Senate joint committee
hearing on Tuesday to answer questions on Facebook's scandals,
there were no real upsets or scandalous remarks. He stuck closely
to talking points, and the technical illiteracy of many lawmakers
was on painful display.

In round two on Wednesday, in front of a committee of the House
of Representatives, the 33-year-old chief executive was grilled
more closely for around five hours, and at times failed to answer
key questions as he pivoted robotically back to pre-prepared
lines.

With just four minutes of questioning allowed per representative,
however, Zuckerberg was never pushed as far as he could have
been. And many of the lawmakers present were primarily
preoccupied with allegations of anti-conservative bias at
Facebook, a line of questioning that failed to produce any
illuminating answers.

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Congresspeople including Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Cathy McMorris
Rodgers (R-WA), and Tim Walberg (R-PI) hit Zuckerberg with a
laundry list of occassions when Facebook has been perceived to
have been censoring conservatives. Pro-Trump internet
personalities
Diamond & Silk were brought up time and time again, in
light of how the social network recently labeled their videos as
"unsafe." Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) even relayed a question from the
vloggers: "What is unsafe about two black women supporting Donald
J. Trump?"

Zuckerberg disputed the assertion, attributing the Diamond &
Silk situation to error on the part of moderators, saying: "I
wouldn't extrapolate from a few examples to assuming the overall
system is biased."

The executive, who has never been a natural public speaker,
stumbled more when grilled by technically adept members of
Congress, and seemed unwilling to go into detail about exactly
what data Facebook collects and how.

When Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) asked if Facebook has legal liability
for content shared on Facebook, he punted and starting talking
about unrelated changes the social network made in 2014 to its
app platform.

And the exec failed to give straight answers when Rep. Kathy
Castor (D-FL) asked about certain kinds of data Facebook
collects, attempting to shift to a rehearsed talking point:
"Congresswoman, the primary way that Facebook works is that
people choose to share data, and they share content because
they're trying to communicate."

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) summarized Zuckerberg's
sometimes-deficient responses in a remark towards the end of the
hearing: "As CEO, you didn't know some key facts. You didn't know
about major court cases regarding your privacy policies against
your company. You didn't know that FTC doesn't have fining
authority and that Facebook could not have received fines for the
2011 consent order."

She continued: "You didn't know what a shadow profile was. You
didn't know how many apps you need to audit. You did not know how
many firms have been sold data by Dr. Kogan, other than Cambridge
Analytica and Eunoia Technologies, even though you were asked
that question yesterday. And yes, we were all paying attention.
You don't even know all the kinds of information Facebook is
collecting from its own users. "